Penn State "National Pushover"

[Captain Kangaroo]

I'm sure the fact that this writer is from Pittsburgh has something to do with the article's "slant," but there's a lot of truth here too. Blood in the water!!! Go Zips!!!

Losing seasons take toll on PSU program

Friday, September 03, 2004

By Chico Harlan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Here is a 297-pound man, reasonable and articulate, Class of 1996. Penn State sent this man to the NFL; Penn State filled Jeff Hartings with memories and lessons and plenty of victories. And -- pffft -- somewhere, school pride fizzled out. What filled him, and so many other Penn Staters, deflated.

"You know," Hartings, the Steelers' starting center, recently said, "they say they're back! Undefeated this season!"

This, of course, is complete sarcasm.

The rest is not. The rest is what remains now that a football program Hartings oh-so-fractionally helped build into a national powerhouse has turned, at times, into a national pushover.

What remains are the ashes of school pride.

"You can't lose three or four years like this without losing something," he said. "I think the first year it was kind of like, 'Wow, what happened to Penn State?' Now, you just start asking questions. Should Joe Paterno be coaching? What's wrong here? Because they definitely have fallen off.

"You don't know how long [Paterno] is gonna be there. He keeps on signing [long-term] contracts, but sooner or later, he'll have to retire. So I think that definitely discourages players from going there, and other teams use that against them. Now Penn State can say they don't have coaching uncertainty, but most of the country doesn't agree with that.

"And, as I see it, they don't have the athletes anymore. When I played, just about every position had somebody at least going to a camp in the NFL. Right now, I don't even know if they have legitimate Division I starters at every position.

"It's real tough, because I took a lot of pride when I played there, in an era where you had a lot of winning seasons. Pretty much everybody who's an alum has been a winner. It's just really the last few years we've had all these losing seasons. It's definitely tough. I think it will be a long road back."

Hartings graduated from high school in 1991. He lived in St. Henry, Ohio -- a tiny map dot in Buckeye country. But one visit to University Park and the Penn State experience -- that famous thing about academics and tradition and winning all the while -- had him hooked. That's how he remembers it, at least.

"But, if I was doing it now, would I go back to Penn State?" Hartings says. He lets out a slight chuckle. "Well, not if winning is important to me."

***

Whatever happened to the Penn State experience? We could delve into semantics here, and suggest that the "E" in experience ought to be capitalized, such was the infallible reverence Penn State players once showed to their program. But somewhere, the experience fizzled; pride deflated. Penn State, entering its opener tomorrow against Akron, is Once-Proud Penn State.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- Oct. 4, 2003: "You wonder if Paterno, consumed with his place in history as a once-proud program crumbles around him, is simply trying to protect his legacy."

Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pa.) -- Oct. 25, 2003: "[T]his once-proud program ... is clearly in full decline."

Centre Daily Times -- Nov. 15, 2003: "It's a sad commentary on the decline of this once-proud program that it has become a source of one-liners."

Lansing State Journal -- Nov. 17, 2003: "Once-proud Penn State comes to town Saturday ..."

Once-proud Penn State is a designation for the present tense, hinting at the Lions' historic success, hammering at their recent failures. Paterno, now in his 39th year as head coach, has guided PSU to 31 bowl games. But PSU has missed bowls in three of the past four seasons. Penn State's record in that span is 22-26.

The Lions joined the Big Ten in 1993; a year later, the team went 12-0 -- 8-0 in conference. That was Hartings' era. Since 1998, Penn State, Indiana and Minnesota are the only Big Ten schools without at least one six-win in-conference season. The Nittany Lions finished 3-9 last season. This is low-watermark stuff. This is today's era.

The Penn State experience no longer yields the success that habitually bred players' faith. The self-perpetuating cycle of winning and believing, winning again and believing some more, somehow broke down.

Some recently departed Penn State players -- those who have struggled through the past half-decade of football -- remember their time at University Park with bitterness, sometimes hostility. The Penn State experience shortchanged them, they believe. What sold them on coming to Penn State -- the inherited sense of success and virtuosity -- fizzled out upon their arrival.

"I'm not a Penn State fan whatsoever. I didn't enjoy my time there," said Ricky Upton, who served as reserve tailback last year, his fifth season with the program. "I know a lot of people will say I'm just bitter about the program, but I know about 50 other guys who are like me -- and they actually played."

"Some things about my time there bother me a lot," said another player, who requested not to be named. "I'll just say this -- if I ever have kids, they'll never play a sport at Penn State."

They agree on this: Penn State, with its 77-year-old coach on the sideline, has ossified into a mediocre program. Recent players, therefore, must cope not only with the regret they have in their own college careers, but also with the disappointment they stirred in older Penn Staters.

"At this point, I don't think they're considered one of the upper-echelon football teams," said Todd Blackledge, who quarterbacked the '82 team to a national championship. "That's disappointing for me, but it's a reality. You look through all the preseason magazines, their name isn't mentioned anywhere near the Top 25. If you look at the list of first- and second- and third-team All Americans, nobody shows up anywhere."

Blame inevitability. No program stays on top for 50 years, not even Notre Dame. This downturn was bound to happen, sure as empires fall and power corrupts.

Blame parity. Did you expect Penn State to rule the Big Ten, a league with strongholds Michigan and Ohio State and a rotating circuit of contenders? This is a conference where power collides with power, and every team falls a little closer to middle-class.

Blame tough luck. That's what players from the team last year were adept at doing.

"It seemed like if it rained," said Damone Jones, a senior tackle last year, "it would have only rained on our sideline."

Blame America. This is the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately culture, Exhibit A. Can four lousy years offset generations of great football? Only here, where forgetting is an American birthright.

Blame Joe Paterno. This is like blaming everything, blaming the whole experience. Paterno and Penn State are so inextricably tied together, salvos fired at either one -- The Program or The Man -- strike at the same general base.

Among recent players, opinions about Paterno are mixed. Some admire the coach and the program for sticking with the traditional values, especially academics, even as winning declines. Some respect him but believe his message fell on players who didn't want to hear it.

"A lot of people didn't understand what he was about," former linebacker Deryck Toles said.

Several seniors on the 2003 team expressed concern about the generation gap between the players and Paterno, whose typical parlance often references players and games from decades ago.

"In meetings, he would tell us stories from, like, 1945, and we'd kind of sit there thinking, This makes no sense. Why does this matter?" said the former player who asked not be identified.

The most direct complaint, though, aims at exactly what Paterno has become -- an icon and a symbol. These days, Paterno is equal parts philanthropist, university ambassador and football coach.

Several former Lions said that Paterno, spread so thin, is unable to create relationships with his players.

Upton said Paterno has neither the time nor the energy to connect with those playing under him, and the Penn State experience can no longer transfer from its creator to its sustainers. Paterno, through spokesman Jeff Nelson, declined to be interviewed for this story.

"I think Joe still knows coaching, but he doesn't know how to relate to his players anymore," said Upton, the running back.

"The only time you see the guy is if you have a problem the [assistant] coaches can't handle or if you're in trouble. He doesn't go to the team dinners. He doesn't go to the Fourth of July picnic. He doesn't spend time with you.

"Guys from older teams that keep coming back to Penn State have a connection with him, but you just don't see that anymore. Whenever younger guys do come back, it's normally to see an assistant.

"People on the team now are close to their personal coaches, but not Joe. I know he's a busy man, but his purpose at Penn State is to coach. He should be around his team more. You want to feel like the head coach is part of the team, not just somebody who's standing there on Saturdays."

Paterno, by most accounts, is still a disciplinarian. But that reputation is undercut by recent teams' off-field behavior, which has been reexamined ad nauseum but never explained. Upton, for one, believes the problems -- 13 Nittany Lion players have been arrested, charged or convicted of a crime in the last year -- come from a simple fact: Many players, especially on the team last year, didn't care.

At midseason, after almost a half-dozen players had already been punished for underage drinking, a group of seniors proposed a team no-drinking policy.

One player, upon hearing the policy, asked this question: "Does that mean I can still drink in my room?"

Others ignored the policy altogether, including one player, interviewed for this story, who couldn't understand why he shouldn't be able to drink and unwind after a Saturday game.

"People weren't willing to make the sacrifice," Upton said.

"Not drinking for [the rest of the season] seemed like the biggest sacrifice in the world. A lot of people were just out for themselves. They simply didn't care."

***

What's changed for players, once they arrive in Happy Valley, is the experience. Once the lifeblood of the football program, it is now an ominous harbinger. Losing, above all else in football, breeds problems; years of losing create a landscape of problems. And this year, most college football magazines predict Penn State to finish sixth or seventh in the Big Ten. Some prognosticators think the Lions will fare worse.

On campus, Penn State players still receive the carte blanche treatment. But little reminders of disappointment subvert the lighter moments.

Last year, Gino Capone, the team's senior starting inside linebacker, received several e-mails from fans and alumni, criticizing Capone and the team.

You're letting us down, the e-mails read.

In all the hours Capone spent during high school scripting his Penn State career, he never imagined a message like this would be part of it.

"The e-mails were one thing, but I was just so frustrated myself. I'd come back from away trips and just bury my head in my pillow, just asking, 'Why is this happening? Why can't we win?'

"Ten years ago, we'd expect to have back-to-back 9- or 10-win seasons. So now ... yeah, there's got to be a sense we've lost something. I think you have to say that."

[Guest #31]

Blood in the water? More like fuel to the fire. Every PSU player and fan knows that the dead wood and bad apples recruited 4-5 years ago are now gone. They were an embarressment. I hope for the Zips sake that the rest of the PSU players aren't reading this article. Just more motivation to prove them wrong tomorrow. This is gonna be fun.

[Guest Guest]

Also, Joe knew he had spread himself too thin.

This is why Fran Ganter moved to administration to cover all the things Joe used to take care of.

Joe's main job now is to simply coach his players, fire them up. And he's doing just that.

The talent is there...

Good luck tomorrow...

[zipboy]

Motivation, look out, blah, blah, blah. What is going to win is talent, preparation, and execution. JD will give the talk that Penn State did not recruit you, you are the underdog, now is your chance to show them what they missed out on. Joe Pa will say last year was an embarrasment, we are all dedicated, let's get out and show them. I like and respect Penn State, and your fans have been great. But when you come over here and say look out Penn State is really mad, we will show the world, I don't get it. Every team in America right now is fired up and ready to show the world how good they are. I look for a good game tomorrow. If we get hammered, I doubt it will be because Penn State wants to win more and show the world the great heart that every Penn State player has. It will be because Penn State has been vastly underrated and Akron has been vastly overrated. I don't see a huge difference in talent, and I would have taken Lee Owens straight up vs Joe Pa. We all hope that JD is a serious upgrade from Lee. Good luck tomorrow.

[Zipsrifle]

Yea Zipboy, I agree with your post. Both teams will be fired up....ALL the teams will be fired up tomorrow. To me it is the mentality underlying it all. Penn State expects to win. Penn State has the mentality that they are superior. Not just the fans, but I'm sure the players and the coaches too. Not that they aren't preparing for us, last year taught them better than that. I just don't believe that we got the preparation that Michigan or another BCS school would. I'm sure that a fair amount of time has been prepping for the BC rematch.

I really don't think they'll throw the entire playbook at us. I think they still see this as a "tune up game". Bottom line, I don't think that PSU is in any way going to come into this game feeling that they've got to play their best to Beat Akron. They are playing against the Media and the Critics and it happens to be that Akron is the opponent. They would have prepared essentially the same for this game as if they were playing Can't, OU, or UCF.

Now for Akron, we're going to have our hands full with the new stuff from JD. BUT, the big difference is, we're NOT holding anything back. We're NOT looking down the road to a rematch. We know we ARE the underdog. If we get blown out (we won't), nobody will think any different. If we make a game of it an lose, JD will be praised. If we win, Heads will roll at PSU and the Zips will be darlings for a week. AKRON HAS NOTHING TO LOSE! For PSU on the other hand, if it's the 4th and it's close, the ENTIRE PSU TEAM will feel the crushing weight of 100,000 fans and the National Media on their sholders. Paterno and the coaches WILL feel the pressure of the final unraveling of a storied era. The same superiority that makes PSU and 99% of the country think that PSU will win is the same thing that can hurt them the most late in the game. It is our biggest advantage.

What I hope what Akron does is concentrate on is minimizing mistakes. I hope that JD makes intelligent decisions. I hope that we get a few breaks. Like the Captian Said, PSU has no idea of what is coming at them. If we can play a fundamentally sound game and make as few mistakes as possible, we will be there in the 4th to take advantage of the PSU reputation.

BE BACK AFTER THE GAME. A NEW ERA IS ABOUT TO BEGIN! GO ZIPS!!!

[Guest Guest]

Yep! Blood in the water! Come on guys?! That's the best you can do against the weakest in the Big Ten?! Well, almost the weakest, MSU lost to Rutgers. OUCH!!